When I say crazy things just happen to me, it's not an exaggeration. I swear I had no intention of adding to my family that Saturday. But there I was, just trying to go to Hobby Lobby to buy a darn wreath and the next thing you know, I'm filling out adoption forms.

It started out like any other normal day for me. Work, running some errands, then heading home...or at least that was my original plan. I stopped by a friend's house to drop off some things and noticed the cutest wreath I've ever laid eyes on. It was a wreath in the shape of a cat and when she said she just recently purchased it at Hobby Lobby, I knew I would have to stop by on my way home to get one for myself.

I've lived in Green Bay for over 11 years of my life, so I know where the stores are. In fact, when it comes to shopping, I'm a professional. Literally.

So that's what makes this story even more ironic.

I made a wrong turn going to the store. I wasn't distracted. I wasn't talking on the phone. I wasn't doing anything but driving up Oneida Street, heading to Hobby Lobby (just like I've done a million times). But instead of turning onto the correct road, I made the turn one street early which put me about a block away from my destination.

As soon as I did it, I realized the error and like I usually do when I'm in the car alone- I talked to myself. Well, in this case, yelled at myself with a few choice words for such a dumb mistake.

"Oh, SH#%." And just for good measure, "SH#%!" again.

Looking back, maybe there was some divine intervention that caused my momentary lack of direction. Because where do I find myself next? Pet Supplies Plus.

It was right there, so I figured what could it hurt if I just ran inside for a minute? Right?

Right?!?!

Let me tell you, that minute turned into 45 which led to me bawling in the parking lot and adding to the family. But I'm getting ahead of myself.

In the summer, this particular store's back area was being transformed into one of the off-site adoption locations for the Wisconsin Humane Society-Green Bay Campus shelter. So I thought to myself: Self, let me just stop in and see if it's up and running.

Not anywhere on my radar was adopting another cat. Mr. Fuzzybottoms and I had been adjusting day by day to the L-A-H-B. Life-After-Hannah Baby. It has been a really emotional adjustment. After Hannah Baby's passing in June of last year, I just wasn't ready for another. I still think about her every day and it just didn't feel like it was the right time to even consider adopting another kitty.

That's part of the reason that I pulled my car into a vacant spot and felt good enough to walk through those doors and see the cats. I knew I was just going to snuggle a few and then I'd be on my way. Because I just wasn't ready.

Did I mention that I just wasn't ready?

That's exactly what I thought as I pulled open that door....and saw a ghost.

I saw my favorite ghost of all time. I saw my Hannah Baby. I stood there frozen, staring at the cage that housed a fluffy calico butt. The exact same fluffy calico butt markings. That's all I could see of that little furbaby and almost just as quickly I couldn't see anything at all because my eyes filled up with tears.

It was at that precise moment that one of the staff members also walked in and asked if she could help me. I couldn't even speak. I tried to wipe away the tears that now began a steady stream down my cheeks. This was not at all how my day was supposed to play out.

I turned my head to her and managed to choke out something inaudible like, "Um...no...I just... I'm not...I didn't..." I couldn't even make out words. It was amid all those stammerings that I figured this poor girl probably wanted to run out of the room and get away from the sobbing, crazy lady that stood before her.

So I tried to smooth over the situation by saying, "I'm not crazy. I swear. It's just that... She looks just like Hannah Baby..." And then I sobbed again.

I've never been more embarrassed to be recognized but thankfully she diffused the awkward situation by quietly saying, "It's ok. I know who you are." Then she sweetly added, "I'm sorry about your cat. It's really hard."

I wiped my face and took a deep breath and squeaked out a thank you, realizing that this poor girl didn't deserve to have to deal with my meltdown. So instead I looked back at the cage, just as the kitty was starting to turn around. I remember hoping that once I saw her face, I'd know for sure if I was the only one seeing this cat or if it really did exist.

She turned. I stopped breathing. She turned a little more. I bent down and put my hand up to her cage. I heard the girl say, "Don't be surprised if she doesn't come to you. She's really shy and nervous."

But she did. She came right up and started licking my hand and I got a good look at her face.

That sweet, delicate face with markings that looked absolutely NOTHING like Hannah Baby. I must have been holding my breath because I let out a big gulp. The volunteer also must have seen this real-life twin of my former baby because as I asked what her story was, she grabbed a notebook binder and started flipping through the pages.

It really didn't matter. I was done for.

There was no way I couldn't adopt this sweetheart. Except for their faces, she was Hannah Baby's clone. It was crazy. And she was perfect.

"Patches" was a 4 year old little girl who was surrendered by her elderly owner when she became too ill to care for her. My heart broke for that person but at the same time, a little piece of mine mended itself.

I visited with her until it was time for them to close for the day but before I left, I leaned over and gave her a big smooch on the head and told her I'd be back for her.

I did come back. In a few days, "Duchess Ella Sofia Karina" settled into her new home. Her forever home with me and her new brother, Mr. Fuzzybottoms. Right where she belonged. Right where I think Hannah Baby wanted her to be.

What seemed like a random wrong turn changed my world that day. Sometimes in life, I think we are lead off the path we think we should be on. When that happens, don't be afraid to walk through that door. Have a good cry if you need to but then reach out, grab the handle, and step through. Because sometimes what's on the other side is exactly what we need.

﻿....all walk into a bar. That's what you were expecting, right? Sorry, but this is not that kind of story . However, if you can come up with a good joke including those 3 things-- by all means-- just leave it in the comments below.

A Peanut. A Bird. And a Bat.

They really don’t have anything to do with each other on the surface. Yet they have everything to do with my dad. And since Father’s Day is right around the corner, I figured I owed him a little something, something. I mean, he didn’t get all that grey hair on his own. In our 30 years together, it can all be summed up with: a peanut, a bird, and a bat.﻿

A PEANUT I’m sure some fathers call their daughters all kinds of cutesy names: princess, honey, daddy’s little girl, etc. But whenever I hear the word 'peanut', I instantly think of my dad. I really don’t know what made him start calling me 'Peanut'. Maybe it’s because I was always so little. Or the youngest of us girls. Maybe it’s because I’ve always been a little nutty. That's probably more like it.

Or maybe it’s because we never can be trusted in those restaurants that serve the endless peanuts in gargantuan troughs. We eat our weight in them. And we can’t help ourselves (even though we’re now both grown adults) but what starts as a casual toss of a shell usually ends up in a full-blown battle with peanut remnants zinging through the air. By this time, Mom steps in and yells at the both of us to knock it off. But I know that years from now (and I hope it’s MANY YEARS) when he’s moved on to that great fishing lake in the sky, I’ll probably find myself bawling in the grocery store aisle surrounded by Planter’s honey roasted.

A BIRD Actually, this just isn’t any bird. It’s a “little birdy". And that dang bird caused me more stress as a child than any other animal. See, this little birdy used to visit my dad on the job site and tell him about all my naughtiness throughout the day. If I didn’t share with the neighbor kids, that bird somehow knew. If I didn’t listen to the babysitter, that feathered creature of doom was on it. If I got in trouble at recess, that mangy animal got to him before I did. Every. Stinking. Time.

Needless to say, I hated that bird. I plotted it’s demise many times. I thought if I ever caught sight of that flying bag of feathers, it would surely regret tattle-tweeting all of my business. I held many a planning session with my cat and gave careful instruction that upon site, she could eat it. It wasn’t until many years later that I figured out that old bird had a name. Funny how it was the same one my mother had. And that bird had my dad on speed dial.

A BAT But not the flying kind. This was a Louisville Slugger. And to this day, my dad probably still has nightmares. See, it all started when my dad coached our softball team. I won’t name names or anything but the coach seemed a little extra hard on one player in particular…. (Me.) Now I’m not saying what I did was payback. I’m not saying that at all. I’m not saying anything, really. In fact, I don’t think either one of us said much to the other for the next few days after the Bat-O-Matic incident went down that fateful summer.

My dad had a plan to get me to become a better batter. My swing wasn’t level and he was bound and determined to correct that with his priceless new invention. I use the term “priceless” very loosely because he had a few days-worth of effort and a few hundred dollars-worth of supplies put into this contraption that he was convinced would probably allow him to retire once the rest of the softball programs started calling in their orders. My grandpa and my dad worked for hours, tinkering with PVC pipes and nuts and bolts. Looking back, the concept was pretty good, too. The center vertical pipe had two pipe arms that horizonatally extended out from the upright pipe to form your strike zone. Those arms could be adjusted to different height levels to line up with any batter’s knees and shoulders (their respective strike zone). When used correctly, if you swung level, the pipe arms would remain still because your bat would swing right through them without touching anything. If you were reaching for a ball that was too high or too low, you’d hit one of the arms and it will swivel around the center pipe. Seems easy enough. Well, it should have been.

They worked night and day until finally it was time to test the Bat-O-Matic. I was summoned to the driveway and handed that infamous metal bat. And this is what my Dad said to me, verbatim: “Hit it. Hit it as hard as you can.”

I'm sure he wishes he could take back those 9 simple words. If he could take them back, he'd probably be retired on his own personal yacht right now.

“Hit it. Hit it as hard as you can.”

If that imaginary little birdy was there, I would have swung without question at it. But, like usual, I tried to reason with my father. I knew how much work went into this thing and I didn’t want to destroy it. “I don’t want to hit it, Dad. It’s going to break”, is what I pleaded.

“You can’t break it, Laura. We designed it to withstand even the hardest swing. Just hit it." That's what he proudly told me. And so.... I did.

And it would have worked. And it would have withstood a normal swing, had a normal person swung like a normal batter does. But we’re talking about me, who isn’t always normal. I’m blonde and whoever came up with the term "blonde moments" sure knew what they were talking about. But to my defense, he wasn’t exactly specific with his “hit it” instruction and so I mustered all my might and swung. Except, it wasn’t quite a normal swing.

In the blink of an eye, I demolished the entire apparatus. I took that bat, hoisted it above my head and blasted downward with the might of Paul Bunyan on steroids. Dad said to HIT IT HARD and I did. The entire “swing” (which in hindsight was more of a chop) lasted only seconds, but the demolition seemed to occur in slow motion. The PVC pipe shattered into smithereens and nuts and bolts were sent flying through the air like shrapnel. I can’t quite remember, but for added gusto I may have even let out a bellow to make sure I HIT IT HARD enough. We all dove for cover and when the dust settled, I looked over at my Dad to say, “See, I told you it would break”.

But it was the look on his face that conveyed a mixture of shock, awe, and disappointment that made me realize before I got the first word out: I don’t think I did that quite right. Oops.

I quietly layed the bat in the driveway, came in the house, and we never spoke of it again. If that little birdy was around then, he probably flew south that day realizing nothing could top this event.

My poor dad. All that work, gone in less than a minute. There never was a second model of the Bat-O-Matic ever made.

A peanut. A bird. And a bat.

As the years have gone by, you’ll notice my dad is indeed a little more grey. I’m not going to take responsibility for all of it, but I know the peanut is to blame for a majority of it. But so is the bird. And most of all, the bat.

Happy Father’s Day, Dad. I love you.﻿

Copyright 2014 Laura McKenna. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without express written consent.

I've never been to therapy. If you asked some of my closest friends, they might suggest I need to seek help. Like right now. Preferably sooner than later. But hey, they must like a little crazy in their world. Obviously!If I ever lay down on a shrink's pleather couch... (don't ask me why it's pleather, but I'm pretty sure it would be)...they would probably say what I always hear them say in the movies. "Tell me about your childhood."Well, we could probably skip all that and get right down to business:

It's all my mother's fault.Now I know that I'm raising cats, while she raised daughters. And I also know parenting doesn't come with a manual. But I'm pretty sure if it did, it would include these key points.....*Leashing your dog is one thing. Leashing you daughter is kind of another. Yeah, she put a leash on me. She said it was some child-harness-thing that was designed for my own good. Call it whatever you like, but it was a leash. And she said that I loved it! I sure bet I did! Funny how I don't remember thatpart of the story. It's probably one of those terrible, repressed memories that I would recall under hypnosis on that pleather couch. But my mother, to this day, says that she had to use it because I would wander up and talk to everyone and she was afraid that they would snatch me up. The leash probably really did deter that. If I witnessed something like that, I'd steer clear of the whole family!

*Playpens = good idea. Animal corrals = bad idea. Yeah, she had my dad build a pen in our backyard. No, not a playpen. That would make too much sense. This was a pen you could keep some small livestock in. As you can see in the picture, I was on the outside of the pen, roaming free with all the other humans in the world that day. She said they built it so I didn't wander out onto the street, but all I did was cry when they put me in there. REALLY??? I wonder why, Mom!!Now this is all making sense, huh? It's a wonder I'm as normal as a I am! Let's continue.*Wait in the parking lot. You may see a trend here, but I cried a lot when I was little. I'm a Cancer (by the luck of the zodiac), so it's really out of my hands. I'm emotional, ya know? So when it came time for pre-school, I cried. A LOT. I didn't want my mom to leave me there. The neighbor boy, Nathan, stuffed me in one of the Playschool refrigerators on the first day. Then he leaned against the door, trapping me inside. Oh, the horror! It was just not a safe place for my delicate little self! So my mom promised to wait in the parking lot while I was inside. She said that if I felt lonely, I could just think of her outside the classroom doors, just a few yards away. That actually worked and I made it out of pre-school alive and without much drama the rest of my academic career. That is, until my sophomore year of high school. I vividly remember sitting around the dinner table after a volleyball game and my mother saying to me, "Well, you really didn't think I was sitting in that parking lot day after day, did you?" WHATTTTTT??????? Of course I did! What other things was this woman hiding?!?!? What should have been hidden? The scissors.

*Do not cut your child's hair. Take them to the professionals. I think you get the picture. From the picture. Poor kid.But even with all these parental rule violations, she did a few things right. She's the first person I call when I've had a bad day. And somehow she just knows immediately. I don't even have so start uncontrollably sobbing (which sometimes happens, but not like it did when I was 5 and wearing a leash with chopped up bangs). She knows just what to say. And sometimes, she doesn't even have to say anything at all. She just has to be there. And she is. Always. So if some old guy with a pleather couch ever asked me how I think my life turned out.... I'd have to say just right. And it's all my mother's fault.

Copyright 2014 Laura McKenna. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without express written consent.